Antiperspirants and deodorants generally available are in the form of aerosol suspensions, roll-on powders, emulsions or suspensions and solid waxes and suspensions.
Clear antiperspirants have been attempted, but to date, none has reached the market place. It is believed that a clear antiperspirant product which offers efficacy and aesthetic properties equal to or better than products presently available would be well received by the purchasing public.
Clear stick deodorant compositions have been available for some time. The clear sticks are generally produced by using stearate soaps as gelling agents for an alcoholic or gylcolic solution of an anti-microbial agent and a fragrance. These deodorant products offer no antiperspirant protection. To use any of the art recognized antiperspirant active ingredients, which are cationic in nature, in the aforesaid deodorant compositions, is chemically incompatible due to the chemical interaction/inactivation between the antiperspirant active material and the soap.
Gelling may also be achieved through the use of cellulosic or algin derived polymeric materials. Most of these materials are incompatible with electrolytes, i.e., the normally used antiperspirant active ingredients, at the levels required to obtain antiperspirant efficacy. Moreover, the polymer materials are unstable at the low PH, normally encountered in antiperspirant products. For example, polyvalent cations such as Al.sup.111, among others, will react with the acidic groups on the cellulosic gum resin to form an insoluble salt.
Alginates in the presence of polyvalent cations are precipitated from solution.
Some cellulosic materials, such as hydroxypropylcellulose, among others, are compatible with polyvalent metal salts and have been used in the manufacture of clear lotions. These cellulosic materials, however, must be prepared with a high percentage of water or alcohol in order to insure solubilization of the active ingredient. Such formulations, in addition to a high irritation potential, are tacky and pituitous and low in efficacy when alcohol based, and exhibit tackiness and long drying time when water based.
In order to overcome the lack of compatibility problems, it has been proposed to prepare gels from clear emulsion gel systems, however, due to the high percentage of emulsifiers required, and the nature of the emulsifiers, the products produced have been unaesthetic, slow-drying and retain a high degree of tackiness even after the addition of emollients normally known and utilized to reduce tackiness in antiperspirant products.
Wax and soap-gel sticks are disclosed in various U.S. patents i.e. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,382,079; 4,414,200; 4,280,994; 4,265,878; 3,259,545; 2,970,083; 2,933,433; 2,900,306 and 2,857,315.
Gelled antiperspirants have been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,383,988.